IIRC(since I'm getting this all second hand from Panopticon): It wasn't just ascended Mages. It was anyone too far from Earth. The Avatar Storm (which happened when the Antediluvian[super vampire] which woke up got killed) fucked everything up dimensionally/spiritually/spacially/whatever. It all but walled off Earth, locking down extra solar travel. Which is what screwed people.
Stay too long away from Earth and you undergo Void Adaptation, turning into spirits/ghosts/wraiths or whatever. Humanity is lost, characteristics exaggerated/flanderized according to belief. So take what the Trads believed about the Technocracy along with any internal propoaganda, and apply that to the space ghosts...